Média v XXI. storočí - Informácia alebo manipulácia
Media in the XXI Century: Information or Manipulation

Summary/Abstract: The information transferred by the media has a great influence on people’s choices, hierarchy of values, belief on personal success, or failure. The media play various roles for the individual sectors of life. For the political systems they are in the first place an instrument for the fight for the authority; for the economic system they are mainly an area of economic activity, whereas the receivers treat them as a source of entertainment. Ubiquity, and wide influence on the reality which the media have causes that it is important in whose hands they are, which values they represent, and in whose interest are they doing it. The author critically refers to the contemporary role of media. Characterising the literature he refers among others to Noam Chomsky, who states that media in the first place manipulate the society: private media act in the interest of advertisers and owners; state ones strengthen the ruling class. In his article the author presents how information and manipulation appear in the media, if we follow their objectives in liberal, Marxist, and according to the hegemonic theory depictions. To conclude, the author doesn’t try to measure how much reliable information and how much manipulation there is in a particular medium, but points out that following the media of authoritarian states one may have an impression that time has stopped, whereas “the information blizzard” constitutes inherent feature of democratic societies. To make possible the development of those societies, the media shouldn’t yield to the temptation of manipulation, but have to provide the reliable information.

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